Northern lights

There was a solar storm last week and we tried to find the Aurora Borealis. The first night, we didn't go very far.  We just went towards the lake by our home.

Nope!

The next night, we decided to drive up to Lake Geneva, WI instead:

Still nope!  I still think it was a bit too bright.  Well, the boys did lose some interest too after a while.  LOL!!

Looks like we will need to wait for another solar storm.  Ooooorrr..., eventually take a trip to Alaska or Iceland :-D

Recent happenings

So, we're trying to finally put this big birdhouse up (again) as I had terrible luck trying to get a screw into this hard piece of wood last time.  I had Graham help me out with a pre-drilled hole instead.  Looks like it's going to be an interesting day. LOL!!

After a few more tries, we did it!

No bird has checked into this Birdie Motel yet.  Hopefully one day!

More drilling also to get this DIY trellis put up for our tomato and cucumber plants, along with some other veggies I'm trying to grow this year :-)

I picked up some strawberry plants for $1 each:

The lady gave me a few extra little plants!  Thankfully I found another raised planter for these extra ones:

Actually, there was 1 ripe strawberry yesterday and I forgot to pick it.  It was totally half eaten today! I'm guessing it's a squirrel?!

And nevermind that, I also found an eaten what looks like a jalapeño pepper in the strawberry planter??

Maybe we'll get a jalapeño plant in here then?? This pepper didn't come from my garden. Ha ha!!

I had some time to spare the other day so I went wandering around a furniture store that I liked.  I really liked this but not for $2,229!!

Going to a store and Graham couldn't help but jump into this little Jeep :-)

Can't believe he is going to turn 14 years old tomorrow!!

Bought a couple of used planters.  Both for $20. What a steal!  It was a bit of a drive but I think it was totally worth it :-)

We went to a plant sale a few weeks ago and it was at this lovely farm.  I had to take a photo of this tree-lined street on the way out:

And then of course, with us in it :-D

Bobby has been making a lot of breakfast for the boys lately during their school days.  They are going to get spoiled!  He did make me a yummy strawberry Nutella crepe one weekend morning.  Although, I thought he put too much Nutella.  I know, can there actually be too much??!

Bobby is still thinking about that "too much Nutella".  LOL!!

Graham has been baking occasionally.  And he's getting quite good at reading instructions on the box and getting everything just right.  Well done, Graham!  These turned out super yummy!!

We still need to work on the cleaning part though!

I was still laying in bed one morning when Bobby came to the bedside and told me there were ants crawling along the ceiling.  Seriously?!  I dumped some ant bait and thankfully the next day, the ants were gone.  Phew!

You're wondering why I have this piece of wood running across by the ceiling.  I'm running out of space to put planters by the sink and turns out I had the perfect piece of wood to go across/above the sink and I could hang some planters instead :-)

And I guess the boys need to learn how to throw chocolate wrappers properly into the trash bag rather than directly into the trash bin.  Ant issues are no fun!

Although, we are getting a lot of ant hills outside as well. Boo hoo!!

Another sewing project at the library. It's sort of like a tool belt/apron. Yes, Momma's stuff.  Ha!

Oh, here's the 2 milkweed that I've planted by the front of the garden.  And oh again, I saw a Monarch butterfly flying around our front yard.  Yay!!

Hopefully more will come back once our milk weed grows a bit more.  

Also picked up a couple more other plants from the Plant Sale.  I finally planted them in the ground a week or so ago during mulching.  Hopefully they will reseed and reproduce nicely for some more color splash in the garden :-)

Can't believe the boys will be out of school in a week's time.  Where did the school year go?!  Hopefully that means they will help me out with a few more projects around the house.  But yikes, asking for help is almost like pulling teeth with the boys, especially with Charlie! And constantly negotiating about computer playing time.  Drives me crazy.  And Bobby always says, it's a short drive. Pha!  :-P

Garden mulching

Our gardens are never short of mulch.  And with all the plants reseeding themselves, it gets so messy! Like this one by the front window:

I thought I'd try and plant some Alcea/Hollyhocks this year.  I read that they are bi-annuals so they might not even flower this year.  The soil around here is quite clay-ish, so hopefully it will just grow??

I've never bought or even seen roots like these before.  So yeah, hopefully something will grow.  Ha!

More stuff multiplying under the leaning tree.  And this spot even has landscape fabric underneath. The plants are happily growing above it.  Sheesh!

Nothing like seeing a storm coming in while mulching.  Yikes!

I was told by our neighbor next door that this water used to get all the way up to our garage door.  I can't imagine! So I guess we should be happy it's only accumulating in this little part of the driveway:

Another day and another storm. There's been so many lately:

I'm sort of glad Graham picked up this red wagon for free.  It's been super useful lugging my gardening stuff around :-)

Do you see the tree line beyond the wagon? Well, that's the entire row of tree/plants that I need to mulch.  Look at it.  Aaaahhh...!!!

I spend a few hours in the afternoon pulling weeds and then thinning out what's necessary.  Progress is sooooo slow:

At least it does look better than the un-mulched section.  I was hoping to make it look more "organic" but it's just too messy and waaaaay too many weeds:

Did I say yet another storm???

The boys have been shooting their bows into the pile of mulch.  They said they lost a couple of arrows.  Well,... found them. Ha!

At least there are some pretty flowers that are blooming right now.  You'd never suspect this one to be so pretty.  It almost looks like a weed at first:

But then, look at its vibrant bloom!  A friend of mine thinks it's some sort of poppy:

Just looked it up online, should be a red oriental poppy.  I tried to move this one to another location as I wanted to plant a couple of milkweeds.  Uhhh... nope! It did not like it's new spot and just splatted flat and died.  Oops!! 

This is what it's supposed to look like.  Could totally mistaken it for a weed when it starts to come out of the ground:

And these are the start of the White Alliums blooming:

Pretty! 

I'm still continuing to grow some veggies under ths grow light.  Hope the corn turns out this year and doesn't get eaten by who-knows-what in the middle of the night:

Unintentionally growing some sort of mushrooms too. LOL!!

Still have about 2/3 left of mulching to do in that row of trees/plants.  I'm getting a break for a couple of days since it's been raining so much.  We got almost 3" yesterday!  And my truck was pelted with some hail while I was out and about. Yikes!!

Side garden landscaping - cont.

This area really didn't look so bad when we first moved in.  But then, the creeping bellflowers and hostas and lilies of the valleys went crazy and everything was so overgrown! So here's a recap of what was done a few weeks ago: 

https://cindyontour.blogspot.com/2024/04/

The plants that were put in the ground last year have not shown any flower buds yet, so hopefully there will eventually be some color back here. In the meantime, I'm hoping to get a vegetable garden on the upper tier.  Bobby said it will be his "salad bar".  Ha!

Instead of 1 raised bed, maybe we'll do 2?

I have my work cut out for me pulling out all these creeping bellflowers and lilies.  Sheesh!

If anything, I'm discovering some more rocks buried in the dirt.  Thankfully just rocks and nothing like another animal carcass - like the one I found in the side yard in our previous home in CA.  That scared the crap out of me!!

Leveling these raised beds is going to be tricky, but it's done by nightfall.  Yay!

But wait, by morning I realized that I totally forgot something.  Where is the outdoor sink going to go??  Urgh!!!

Well, looks like we're down to just 1 raised bed and the sink will go against the brick wall.  This will give us just enough space anyway to wash our feet when we get back to the lake.  It's working out! Although now I have to re-level this one other side.  I never make it easy for myself, do I?!

Add some deck tiles and TADA!  Perfect!!

Getting the hose up on the hanger on the other hand... OMG, not so perfect!  It twisted on itself so many times that it probably took me a good 5-10 minutes just to get it all untangled and hung on the hose hanger properly:

And oh, outdoor sink now also comes with an outdoor faucet AND shower spray.  This is actually one that's used for doggy washes.  He he!

So glad this spot is done! These lilies are so pretty and look so harmless!

... until they are overgrown and end up like this!

I'm sure there will be more to pull out before next season.  I'll have to figure out when to do so, so it doesn't reseed itself!

My poor yoga frog will also need some TLC.  I left it out during this harsh winter and it has some cracks:

Thankfully, these cracks can be fixed with a tube of concrete and some outdoor paint.  Oh wait, what color did I pick? Oh, you mean the same blue as the front door should be perfect?  Yup, you're right! :-P

And I have the perfect spot for Mr Yoga Frog - on a rock right in front of the creeping hydrangeas:

And now, the side garden is complete! By the way, I did end up trimming about half of the creeping hydrangea off.  It was looking rather limp.  Hope to someday see some flowers on it.  Fingers crossed!

Oh,I did discover a couple of days ago that the first step at the bottom of the stairs here needs some concrete repair.  I can totally see the rebar. This outdoor work is never ending!!